We Found New Planets. No, You Can’t Live There

Everyone is freaking out about the discovery of 7 new potentially-habitable exoplanets, but is Trappist-1 really as good as it sounds?

Pluto Could Be Made A Planet Again, Along With 102 Other Celestial Bodies –
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‘Habitable’ Exoplanets Might Not Be Very Earth-Like After All

“One of the most exciting moments in exoplanet science came in late February, when NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope announced the discovery of seven rocky planets orbiting in or near the habitable zone of their parent star, TRAPPIST-1, which lies 40 light years away from Earth. Comparing the habitability of our own planet to the conditions on newly-discovered exoplanets, however, could be misleading, according to the authors of a commentary in the journal Nature Astronomy.”

Astronomers Aren’t Sure if TRAPPIST-1’s Planets Are Habitable After All

“In what is becoming a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions, it seems that at least a couple – if not all — of the seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system could have already been stripped of their atmosphere by the star’s radiation, making it unlikely that liquid water could flow on their surfaces after all.”

NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star

“NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system.”
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